PanoTools:
Re: PanoTools Yahoo Groups Membership Migration - "Soup" vs. Isolation
Eric O'Brien 2004-Nov-25 05:48:27
(Duplicate of a post I just made at
<http://panotools.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=52#52>)
It could just be that I haven't used web forums enough to "get it."
But of the several I must use because I have no other option... I have
not developed anything close to a "warm feeling" about any of them.
An email list is pretty darn unsophisticated. But there's also a value
in that. Yes, certainly there is often a lot of noise. The upside is
that email lists are an uninterrupted "soup" of conversation(s)
extending back through time as far as I care to retain the individual
email messages in my own email program on my own computer.
On a mailing list I may feel that I'm getting "too much stuff I don't
care about," but on a web forum I usually feel that "I'm missing too
much stuff I'm interested in."
Web forums seem to go quiet too quickly. I've repeatedly seen threads
where reasonable questions were asked, or interesting viewpoints put
forth, but which just went dead, with no reply.
I find web forums require too high a maintenance. It feels that if I
don't check back *frequently*, and look at *every* thread, I'm sure to
miss something.
Forums seem often to have posts to the effect of "That's already been
covered! Didn't you search the archives?? See thread
<blah_blah_blah_LINK>." Well, it happens that they *did* search the
archives... they just failed to search on the "correct" term.
Yuck.
Also, "send me email when threads I've started (participated in) get
replies" can be a REAL irritation. Pretty soon your mail box begins to
fill with messages like "Billy Big has replied to your thread 'what
version?' on Panotools.info.forum." Often, you check these out and
they are to the effect of "I don't know? Does anyone else know?"
Ugh.
I sure don't know what a solution would be, but I'm not confident web
forums are it.
eo
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